Easy Pinwheels : A tutorial

Easy Pinwheels : A tutorial

Easy Pinwheels : A tutorial

July 22, 2013nicole

Pinwheel Quilts are some of my most favorite! Today I am going to show you my shortcut on making some easy Pinwheels.

This tutorial is for making a small pinwheel out of charm squares, I listed the amounts I used for the quilt shown in case you would like to make a similar one. The finished size of this baby quilt measures: 36” x 41”

Fabrics for the above project include:

Charm pack of Kona solid white (or 42 pieces of 5” squares)

Charm pack of Kona brights rainbow pack (or 42 pieces of 5” squares)

3” strips of solid white Kona cotton for borders, trim to fit

Solid white kona for backing and binding.

Heirloom cotton batting // Hobbs fusible

Sewing Step 1:

When I have a project that requires many of the same thing I like to make my blocks assembly line style, meaning I do the same step on each block before moving to the second step.

Take a square (for this example we will say red) and square up with a white square, right sides facing each other.

Sew around the perimeter with a 1/4” seam allowance.

Sewing Step 2:

Take to your cutting board and cut from corner to corner creating 4 triangles.

Press open triangles, I like to press all fabric towards the darker color. This helps with this project because the brights would show up under the white fabric very easily when finished.

Snip the tails off of the edges to reduce the bulk when we sew these together.

If you are keeping your pinwheels as one solid color, stack these nicely together with matching colors. This will make sewing together on the next part easier. (some of the kona solids are very similar in color and getting these mixed up is a mess)

Sewing Step 3:

I like to then lay out my 4 pieces in a pinwheel pattern next to my sewing machine.

Starting with your top 2, sew these together with a 1/4” seam allowance. Set aside.

Do the same with the bottom 2.

Take to the ironing board and sew backing in opposite directions, I like to iron opposite directions so the two rows nest together nicely.

Sewing Step 4:

Time to connect your two rows. If you ironed opposite directions you can easily next the 2 halves and pin in place.

Sew together with a 1/4” seam allowance. Take to ironing board.

Since there are so many layers I usually iron this time with seam allowance open, going one way may be too bulky.

Take your stack of finished pinwheels to the cutting board and square up.

This shortcut tutorial is a much faster way to make an easy pinwheel. Eliminating the need to make each half square triangle (HST) individually. I also use this technique with my Modern Maple block, and when making a quilt entirely out of HST.

If you make a pinwheel quilt please leave us a picture or a link to your blog! Love to see all of the different variations.

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